I’ve shared quite a bit of nostalgia about the old days of Twitter, and what a wonderful community it was. I was reminded of this a couple times on LinkedIn today. First was a post by Dean Shareski, shared fully here:
Are online communities still a thing? When I think about the last 2 decades I would argue that Twitter in the early 2010s was the height of educator community engagement. And yet I’d argue that was more network than community. Various mom and pop spaces have come and gone with the intent of creating safe and robust ways for educators to connect. During my tenure at Discovery we tried unsuccessfully to create such a space.
I still see attempts to make this work but I’m not seeing it. This platform currently seems to be the best option but still lacks safety and intimacy to take conversation and learning to the next level.
Maybe online communities are a white whale. What is the best we can hope for in terms of online engagement and community for educators?
I commented:
While I’ve missed the edutwitter era dearly since that time when I engaged in a wonderful community, I also know that even if that era came back, I wouldn’t engage as much now. The engagement then was more raw, more honest… dialogue was sincere and challenges to ideas were met with discourse not anger or defensiveness. Now, as you mention, the safety and intimacy seem to be lacking.
Yet, I saw the shift in community use that was a turning point. It was pretty quick, and it was about our own community engagement. For example, I can remember seeing the move from someone reading a blog post and responding in the comments or on Twitter, to suddenly getting instant retweets that came out faster than it was possible to read the whole blog post. There were people auto posting, and there seemed to be a race to share something first, to be first to engage, but with shallow engagement.
I no longer go to a blog feed reader anymore. I don’t see social media feeds that keep my attention. I see a lot of useless advice: https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/advice-for-everyone-and-no-one/ … and these kinds of ‘self-help’ posts are why LinkedIn can not be the tool I’m looking for, and yet like you I think it’s the best tool of the lot right now.
I didn’t answer his question, but that’s mostly because I don’t have an answer. I can’t see anything replacing the community I had on Twitter, and yes, I use the term community and not network. We didn’t stick to Twitter, we were on blogs, and other networks like Ning, and connecting on UStream, sharing videos on Blip TV, sharing links on del.icio.us, reading on Google Reader, and tracking our comments on CoComment… all defunct now. It was truly a different time. There was also a different tone to the exchanges as I hinted above. Discourse was rich and now it seems to be shallow… Mostly accolades and praise or very cautious.
Shortly after seeing Dean’s post, I saw William (Bill) M. Ferriter’s post about leaving Twitter, also on LinkedIn:
After close to 20 years on Twitter, I deactivated my account yesterday. It’s an incredibly toxic space where you are just as likely to end up in an argument as you are to think together.
Planning on moving my social interactions around education to LinkedIn.
Hoping to build consistent routines in both posting new ideas and resources here — as well as learning alongside all y’all.
Thanks for having me.
Bill is/was one of those community members that made Twitter great. We conversed many times on Twitter and on our blogs, for at least a couple years before meeting face to face. When we met, I connected with a digital colleague, one of many digital neighbours who I often engaged with more than I did the educators across the hall from my in my school. The friendship was already fully built. I also met Dean face-to-face years after I started learning from him. I’ve read so many of Bill and Dean’s blog posts, tweets, and comments that I think I actually do know more about them than I do some close friends.
Now Bill is off of Twitter and I may leave the site too before the end of the year. I’m left wondering the same things as Dean, “Maybe online communities are a white whale. What is the best we can hope for in terms of online engagement and community for educators?“
I read this post a few weeks ago David and have been left thinking. I like your point about the digital ecosystem of blogs, Twitter, video and podcasts, I wonder if that is often overlooked. It is never one thing, but I do miss those days. Not sure if or when I will ‘quit Twitter’, but in some ways I feel I already have. I cannot remember the last time I mindlessly scrolled through my feed. For so long I was consuming Tweets through my feed reader, until I discovered that someone took down the bridge, I then found another way via Inoreader, until that bridge was removed too. I was then faced with the choice and seemingly boarded up the house. I sometimes go there to search for something or post a reply to someone, but I never really stay.
The problem that you and Dean touch upon is where is the community space for education? I have never been a fan of LinkedIn, in part that it is not public, but also that it feels too performative. Maybe the work banal ‘magic’ that encapsulates my days just does not fit there, but then again, maybe I am just naïve to how performative Twitter is/was. I fear I have become a recluse in the woods living in the small hut that is my own website, just talking to myself as the local habitat walks on past wondering what I am doing.
Greetings Aaron,
Thank you for visiting and reconnecting with a comment. I really felt this line, “I fear I have become a recluse in the woods living in the small hut that is my own website…”
I admittedly no longer have a feed reader for blogs. I might stumble to the occasional link on one of the socials, but I have no sense of the community we once had. I have email updates for sites, but they are several of the 16,000+ unread emails in my gmail that I seldom get to because I already get too many work emails.
I don’t go anywhere online intentionally to read anymore and so whose fault is it that I feel disconnected? I can blame the tools, but give me the perfect feed reader and I’m not convinced I’d be much better right now. I have, like you, become a bit of a recluse… sharing but not contributing beyond my small hut.